Richard Mentor Johnson Totally Explained

Everything about Richard Mentor Johnson totally explained

Richard Mentor Johnson (October 17, 1780 or 1781 – November 19, 1850) was the ninth Vice President of the United States, serving in the administration of Martin Van Buren. He was the only vice-president ever elected by the United States Senate under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment. Johnson also represented Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and began and ended his political career in the Kentucky House of Representatives.
   Johnson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1806. He became allied with fellow Kentuckian Henry Clay as a member of the War Hawks faction that favored war with Britain in 1812. At the outset of the War of 1812, Johnson was commissioned a colonel in the army. He and his brother James served under William Henry Harrison in Upper Canada. Johnson participated in the Battle of the Thames where some maintain that he personally killed the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, a fact he later used to his political advantage.
   Following the war, Johnson returned to the House of Representatives, and was elevated to the Senate in 1819 to fill the seat vacated by John J. Crittenden, who resigned to become Attorney General. As his constituency grew, his interracial relationship with a mulatto slave named Julia Chinn was more widely criticized, damaging to his political ambition. Unlike other leaders who had relationships with their slaves, Johnson was open about his relationship with Chinn, and regarded her as his common law wife. He freely claimed Chinn's two daughters as his own, much to the consternation of some in his constituency. The relationship was a major factor in the 1829 election that cost him his seat in the Senate, but his district returned him to the House the following year.
   In 1836, Johnson was the Democratic nominee for vice-president on a ticket with Martin Van Buren. Campaigning with the slogan "Rumpsey Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh", Johnson fell just short of the electoral votes needed to secure his election when Virginia's delegation to the electoral college bucked the vote of their state and refused to cast their votes for Johnson. He was elected to the office by the Senate along sharp party lines.
   Johnson proved such a liability for the Democrats in the 1836 election that the party refused to renominate him for vice-president in 1840. Instead, Van Buren campaigned with no running mate, and lost the election to William Henry Harrison. Johnson made several failed attempts to return to elected office, and he finally returned to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1850. He died on November 19, 1850, just two weeks into his term.
   Johnson's appearance was striking: he was stout and had light reddish hair, but grayed early; one hand had been wounded in the war. In his later political career, he became known for wearing a bright red vest and tie. He adopted this dress during his term as vice-president when he and James Reeside, a mail contractor known for his drab dress, passed a tailor's shop that displayed a bright red cloth in the window. Johnson suggested that Reeside should wear a red vest because the mail coaches he owned and operated were red. At the time, the family was living in the newly founded settlement of "Beargrass", near present-day Louisville, Kentucky; all of Kentucky was part of Virginia until 1792. By 1782, they'd moved to Bryan's Station, Kentucky in Fayette County. Johnson's mother was considered a heroine for her actions during Simon Girty's raid on Bryan's Station in August 1782. The traditional story runs: As Girty's forces surrounded the fort, the occupants discovered that there was no water inside. A number of Indians concealed themselves near the spring from which the settlement drew water; however, the fort's inhabitants believed it unlikely that they'd show themselves until they believed they could capture the stockade. There was a risk that the Indians would assault the women, and many of the men disapproved of the plan, but devoid of other options, they eventually acquiesced. One of the enemy's flaming arrows landed in the crib of the infant, Richard Mentor Johnson, but it was quickly doused by Johnson's sister Betsy.
   The biographies in Johnson's lifetime say his formal education didn't begin until age fifteen, and he entered Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky shortly thereafter. There is no contemporary record of his attendance, but the records before 1802 are incomplete. By 1799, he was studying law with George Nicholas and then with James Brown, who were Professors of Law at the University in addition to private practice; he was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1802, and opened his office at Great Crossing. He also opened his home to disabled veterans, widows, and orphans. Chinn was a light-skinned octoroon; nevertheless, the law considered her a Negro which prevented Johnson from marrying her. Throughout his career, Johnson treated Chinn as his common law wife. When she left him for another man, Johnson had her captured and sold at an auction. He then began a relationship with her sister. Despite Johnson's treatment of Imogene as a daughter, she didn't inherit his estate upon his death.

Political career

Johnson's political service began in 1804 when he was elected to represent Scott County in the Kentucky House of Representatives. He was immediately placed on the Committee on Courts of Justice. During his tenure, he supported legislation to protect settlers from land speculators.
Johnson held his seat until 1806 when he was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the United States House of Representatives. He continued to represent the interests of the poor as a member of the House and first came to national attention with his opposition to rechartering the First Bank of the United States. Although Hamilton was a champion of the rival Federalist Party, Johnson had compassion on Hamilton's widow and, before the end of his term, secured payment of the wages.

War of 1812

The War of 1812 was extraordinarily popular in Kentucky; Kentuckians depended on sea trade through the port of New Orleans and feared that the British would stir up another Indian war. After the election of 1808, Johnson was one of the War Hawks, a group of legislators who clamored for war with the British. Johnson at first raised 300 men, divided into three companies, who elected him major; they then merged with another battallion, forming a regiment of 500 men, with Johnson as colonel. Johnson's force was originally intended to join General William Hull at Detroit, but Hull surrendered Detroit on August 16 and his army was captured. Johnson reported to William Henry Harrison, Territorial Governor of Indiana, now in command of the entire Northwest frontier; he was ordered to relieve Fort Wayne in the northeast of the Territory, which was already being attacked by the Indians. On September 18, 1812, Johnson's men reached Fort Wayne just in time to save it, after turning an Indian ambush back on the ambushers. They then returned to Kentucky and disbanded, going out of their way to burn Potawatomi villages along the Elkhart River.
   Johnson returned to his seat in Congress in the late fall of 1812 and devised a plan, based on his experience, to defeat the guerilla warfare of the Indians. The difficulty had always been that American troops moved slowly and were dependent on a supply line; Indians would evade battle and raid supplies until the American forces were compelled to withdraw or could be overrun. Mounted riflemen could move quickly, carry their own supplies, and live off the woods. If they attacked Indian villages in winter, the Indians would be compelled to stand and fight for their own winter supplies, and could be decisively defeated. He submitted this plan to President James Madison and Secretary of War John Armstrong, who approved it in principle. They referred the plan to Harrison, who found winter operations impracticable, but Johnson was permitted to try it in the summer of 1813; later Indian wars were conducted in winter..
   Johnson left Washington, D.C. just before Congress adjourned; this time he raised a thousand men, nominally part of the militia brigade under Kentucky Governor Isaac Shelby, but largely operating independently. He disciplined his men, required that every man have his arms in prime condition and ready to hand, and hired gunsmiths, blacksmiths, and doctors at his own expense. He devised a new tactical system: when any group of men encountered the enemy, they were to dismount, take cover, and hold the enemy in place. All groups not in contact were to ride to the sound of firing, and dismount, surrounding the enemy when they got there. Between May and September, Johnson raided throughout the Northwest, burning Indian villages, surrounding Indian units and scattering them, and killing some Indian warriors each time.
   In September, Oliver Hazard Perry destroyed most of the British fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie, taking control of the lake. This put the British army, then at Fort Malden (now Amherstburg, Ontario) out of supply, and threatened to cut it off from the rest of Canada by a landing to the east. The British, under General Henry Procter, withdrew to the northeast, followed by Harrison, who had advanced through Michigan while Johnson kept the Indians engaged. Tecumseh covered the British retreat, but was countered by Johnson, who had been called back from a raid on Kaskaskia that had taken the post where the British had distributed arms and money. Johnson's cavalry defeated Tecumseh's main force on September 29, took British supply trains on October 3, and was one of the factors inducing Procter to stand and fight at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, as Tecumseh had been demanding he do. At the battle itself, Johnson's forces were the first to attack. One battalion of five hundred men, under Johnson's elder brother, James Johnson, engaged the British force of eight hundred regulars; simultaneously, Richard Johnson, with the other, now somewhat smaller battalion, attacked the fifteen hundred Indians led by Tecumseh. There was too much tree cover for the British volleys to be effective against James Johnson; three quarters of the regulars were killed or captured.
   The Indians were a harder fight; they were out of the main field of battle, skirmishing on the edge of an adjacent swamp. Richard Johnson eventually ordered a suicide squad of twenty men to ride forward and draw the Indians' fire, planning to charge with the rest as they reloaded. But the ground before the Indian position was too swampy to support many cavalry. Johnson had to order his men to dismount and hold until Shelby's infantry came up. But eventually they broke, and fled into the swamp. At some point in that fight Tecumseh was slain.
   Richard Johnson was credited later with killing Tecumseh personally. Indian reports were that Tecumseh was killed by a man on horseback, and Johnson was one of the few mounted men at that side of the battle. (His own men had dismounted, and Shelby's were infantry.)Furthermore, Johnson, who had been wounded four times already, had been shot in the shoulder by an Indian chief who was advancing to tomahawk Johnson, when he shot back and killed the Indian instantly with a single pistol shot. A nineteenth-century source asserts that Tecumseh's body was found, near Johnson's hat and scabbard, shot from above (as from horseback), and wounded with Johnson's usual load of two buckshot and a pistol ball.
Johnson fell unconscious after this duel and was dragged from the battlefield; in addition to his five wounds, twenty other bullets had hit his horse and gear.. But the war in the Northwest was over. Although there was no organized resistance to his presence in Canada, Harrison withdrew to Detroit because of supply problems. (The Canadians wouldn't feed his men.) Johnson eventually recovered, except for a crippled hand, but he was still suffering from his wounds when he returned to the House in February 1814. Following the sacking of Washington, the tide of battle turned against the British, and the Treaty of Ghent ended the war even as Johnson prepared to return to Kentucky to raise another military unit. With the end of the war, he turned his legislative attention to issues such as securing pensions for widows and orphans and funding internal improvements in the West. To remedy this, he sponsored the Compensation Act of 1816. The measure proposed paying annual salaries to of $1500 to congressmen rather than a $6 per diem for the days the body was in session. (At the time, this had the effect of increasing the total compensation from about $900 to $1500. Johnson noted that congressmen hadn't had a pay increase in 27 years, and that $1500 was still less than the salaries of 28 clerks employed by the government.) When a congressman was absent, his salary was to be reduced proportional to the length of the absence. Many legislators who supported the bill lost their congressional seats as a result, including Johnson's colleague from Kentucky, Solomon P. Sharp. Johnson's popularity in other matters helped him retain his seat, and two days into the next session, he recanted his support for the law. It was quickly repealed in that session, and in its place legislators passed an increase in the per diem salary.
   In 1817, Congress investigated General Andrew Jackson's execution of two British subjects during the First Seminole War. Johnson chaired the committee which conducted the inquiry. The majority of the committee favored a negative report and a censure for Jackson. Johnson, a Jackson supporter, drafted a counter report that was more favorable to Jackson and opposed the censure. The ensuing debate pitted Johnson against fellow Kentuckian Henry Clay. Johnson's report prevailed, and Jackson was spared censure. This disagreement between Johnson and Clay, however, marked the beginning of a political separation between the two that lasted for the duration of their careers.
   President James Monroe seriously considered Johnson for the position of Secretary of War after Henry Clay declined the office, but the post ultimately went to John C. Calhoun. In December 1818, the state legislature was to elect a replacement for outgoing senator Isham Talbot. Johnson lost the election by twelve votes to William Logan despite the fact that he never officially declared his candidacy.
   Part of Johnson's campaign for relief was the abolition of the practice of debt imprisonment nationwide. It would take him nearly ten years to see this goal accomplished. He first spoke to the issue in the Senate on December 14, 1822, introducing a bill to end the practice, and pointing to the positive effects its cessation had effected in his home state. The bill failed, but Johnson persisted in re-introducing it every year. In 1824, it passed the Senate, but was too late to be acted upon by the House. It passed the Senate a second time in 1828, but again, the House failed to act on it, and the measure died for some years, owing to Johnson's exit from the Senate the following year.
   Already known for securing government contracts for himself, as well as his brothers and friends, he established the Choctaw Academy, a school devoted to the education of the Indians, on his farm in Scott County in 1825. Although he never ran afoul of the conflict of interest standards of his day, some of his colleagues considered his actions ethically questionable. In the report, presented to Congress on January 19, 1829, Johnson argued that government was "a civil, and not a religious institution", and as such couldn't legislate the tenets of any particular denomination. The report, commonly called "Col. Johnson's second Sunday mail report", was delivered to Congress in March 1830. Kendall claimed he'd seen the report only after it had been drafted and said he'd only altered "one or two words." The subject began to appear more frequently in President Jackson's addresses to the legislature. Johnson chaired a House committee to report on the subject, and delivered the committee's report on January 17, 1832. Later that year, a bill abolishing the practice of debt imprisonment passed both houses of Congress, and was signed into law on July 14.
   Johnson's stands won him widespread popularity and endorsement by George H. Evans, Robert Dale Owen, and Theophilus Fisk for the presidency in 1832, but Johnson abandoned his campaign when Andrew Jackson announced he'd seek a second term. He then began campaigning to become Jackson's running mate, but Jackson favored Martin Van Buren instead. At the Democratic National Convention, Johnson finished a distant third in the vice-presidential balloting, receiving only the votes of the Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois delegations; William B. Lewis had to persuade him to withdraw

Election of 1836

Following the election of 1832, Johnson continued to campaign for the Vice Presidency which would be available in 1836; he was endorsed by the New York labor leader Ely Moore on March 13, 1833, nine days after Jackson and Van Buren were inaugurated. Moore praised his devotion to freedom of religion and his opposition to imprisonment for debt.
William Emmons, the Boston printer, published a biography of Johnson in New York dated July 1833. Richard Emmons, from Great Crossing, Kentucky, followed this up with a play entitled Tecumseh, of the Battle of the Thames and a poem in honor of Johnson. Many of Johnson's friends and supporters – Davy Crockett and John Bell among them – encouraged him to run for president. Jackson, however, supported Vice-President Van Buren for the office. Johnson accepted this choice, and once again turned his sights on a nomination for vice-president.
Jackson's faith in Johnson to balance the ticket proved misplaced. In the general election, Johnson cost the Democrats votes in the South, where his relationship with Chinn was particularly unpopular. He also failed to garner much support from the West, where he was supposed to be strong due to his reputation as an Indian fighter and war hero. One elector from Virginia and all eleven from South Carolina voted for Van Buren for president but selected someone other than Johnson for vice-president. Some speculated that the real object of this campaign was to secure another nomination to the vice-presidency, but this hope was denied.
Johnson, and more prominently his common-law wife Julia Chinn and their daughters, all play visible roles in the Eric Flint alternate history novels and (particularly the latter).

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